Last year, I returned to Fuling, a river town near the Yangtze River. I visited the White Crane Ridge Underwater Museum. It’s a very strange museum    1     is under 40 meters of water, I knew its director even before the museum and the Three Gorges Dam     2    .

I taught English at the local college in the town of Fuling     3     1996 to 1998. Fuling was then quiet. Foreigners were very rare(稀小). When I ate my lunch in the town centre, often a crowd came to watch me. There weren’t any traffic     4     I couldn’t find a car.

During my visit, I     5     some of my old students. They told me about their old classmates, many of whom had left Fuling. I also visited Huang Zongming and his brother.    6     I lived here, they were fishermen. When the first stage of the dam was     7    ,they left their home. I was sure that their lives were     8     changed. But now l discover that everything is almost the same for    9    .They are still fishermen and go     10     every day. The fishing on the river is still good.The dam has not changed some things in Fuling.

Time travel, alien invasions, and artificial intelligence have always been popular themes in science fiction. However, these were never the exclusive domains of sci-fi writers. Some scientists also    1     explore these themes    2    . Take time travel as an example. Many fascinating stories based on time travel go either    3     or forwards in time. However, the former is not really an option. World-famous scientist Stephen Hawking once explained that travelling into the past would     4    the basic rule that cause comes before effect. But it would be possible to travel into the future in a vastly     5    spaceship approaching the speed of light. In addition to the question of time travel, Hawking also expressed his opinions on alien invasions and Al development. When many scientists and scholars were still arguing about the     6    of alien existence and AI development, Hawking said he believed aliens would invade Earth, and that humans would eventually    7     by Aland robots.

How are you? If you’re still very hard-working, then I’m sure you’re    1     (keep) yourself busy! I do    2     (hope) you’re healthier though. I know I love eating too much junk food and far too many sweets. I hope you’re stronger than me and     3    (give up) these bad habits.

How’s everything going with work? Do you remember that you    4    (want) to be a pilot? If you do, then I hope you’re flying around the world to fun places and     5    (do) a lot of sightseeing. I think that the computer technology in your time must    6    (be) so much better than it is now. The way things are going right now, people will no longer    7    (drive) cars one day because computers     8    (operate) them completely. Moreover, companies will probably     9    (try) to do the same thing with planes soon afterwards. I think it would be quite dangerous if all the cars on the road were driverless. However, I think the idea of     10    (have) any pilots on a plane is much more dangerous. This is because any big computer problem could cause one or more planes full of people to crash!

I hope I’m right about planes still    11     (need) pilots, but if I’m wrong, I look forward to    12    (find) out what other job you chose for your career.

Your friend,

Present Me

On today’s episode of “Future Change”, we talked about predictions about the future with two experts from different fields. Dr. Han, a computer scientist     1     that computers would be cleverer than humans in the     2     future. He thought people would also be programming computers to think like humans. Another guest Vincent Black, an architect, predicted that smart homes with integrated sensors could keep us     3    , save us energy and warn us of     4     dangers. With the development of advanced technology, he also believed that cities floating on water are part of our world’s future. Whether their predictions are     5    or not, today’s talk is a good interaction.